Experiences with Kickstarter?

[Andail]

What's people's opinions on Kickstart? Easy to use, does what it says, etc?

I want my next game to be a commercial release, and it would be nice with a budget to get stuff like music and voices. I've soon put together a playable demo, and then I'll be ready to start spreading the word. I've been entertaining the notion of using Kickstart.
Can anyone share their experiences with it?

[Anian]

I don't by any means mean to discourage you or anybody else from Kickstarter, but just an interesting article full of useful statistics started circling (there are further links within):
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117855-Ambitious-Blogger-Calculates-Kickstarter-Games-Failure-Rate

[WHAM]

Well, Screen7 used Indiegogo to raise some money for Kinky Island, so unless they are soon on the forums, cursing how they have been swindled and their money stolen, I think that is a good option as well. I am planning on starting up a small fundraiser on Indiegogo myself, probably late this year or early next year.

[CaptainD]

What's people's opinions on Kickstart? Easy to use, does what it says, etc?

I think it does, but 2 reasons you should consider IndieGoGo instead:

- I don't think Kickstarter is Europe-friendly yet - as far as I remember from when I looked into it in relation to my own game a couple of weeks back, you have to be located in the US
- With Kickstarter, you only get the money if you raise all of your goal.  With IndiGoGo, if you raise less than you were trying for, you still get the money (although the commission they take is slightly higher - 7% instead of 4% I think)

[m0ds]

Mode7

Kickstarter requires a US bank account, or an account linked to US Amazon payments. At least, it did the last time I checked. IndieGoGo is Euro friendly. There's also a similar one especially for games but I completely forget the name of it. Take the fees into account with IndieGoGo, but I'd recommend it. Good luck!

[WHAM]

@m0ds: Yeah, I write from my (bad) memory, since I'm at work! Mode7, Screen7, Killer7, it's all the same!

[Darth Mandarb]

I was looking into Kickstarter awhile ago (for a work-related project).  Turns out we couldn't use Kickstarter for it but that's another story.

It seems, to me, that it's really just hit or miss with KS.  Some statistics I've seen recently (the link Anian provided) seem to indicate that slightly more than 1/2 succeed.

I think the best thing to do would be to set a very reasonable funding goal.

Here's a very helpful article I read (bookmarked) back in April:
http://www.good.is/post/the-6-variables-behind-a-kick-ass-kickstarter-project/

From the shots you posted in the Release Something thread (and out of love for my fellow AGSers) I'd throw some coin at your kickstarter campaign

Good luck.

[Andail]

Thanks for your invaluable input, I'll certainly look into IndieGoGo!

Darth, thanks a bunch, I'll hold you to that

[Vince Twelve]

I would also kick in money to a Kickstarter for that gorgeous looking game!  (Do you have a US bank account, though?  It's required for Kickstarter.  You could use a proxy, if you have a trustworthy friend in the US *cough* and I'm sure you have several on this very site!)

I held a Kickstarter for Resonance two and a half years ago, and had a generally positive experience.  The site is easy to use for the most part. The reporting features leave a lot to be desired.  It's really hard just to get a mailing list of all your donators, for example.  But all the updates, video, and media are easy to handle.  And all the money was handled really well and shunted into my bank account easy-peasy.

Things have changed a lot on Kickstarter since then, though.  At that point, Kickstarter was very new and the $20,000 projects were the amazingly big ones. So, $2,000 seemed like a significant achievement for me.  Now, of course, the big ones are in the millions and $2,000 would be a tiny blip on the radar.

It is very hard now, from what I understand, to get attention on Kickstarter without a recognizable IP or a big name attached to a project.  You'll need community support and lots of people getting the word out (which I'm sure you'll get a lot of from this community!).  And maybe don't set your goal in the $500,000 range.   Make sure you have a video that stands out and some good pictures to go along with it.  Set a low-ball goal and hope you smash past it.  Better than setting a big goal, falling short, and getting nothing.

Another big tip:  Make sure the rewards you offer are either digital (desktop backgrounds, downloads of the game, thanks in the credits) or sufficiently over-priced to make it worth it.  If you're spending all your effort making and mailing posters and t-shirts and you're making only a few dollars profit on each, it's a waste of time and not at all worth it.  It's KickSTARTER, not KickSELLER, so you're looking for generous donations, not product sales.  Most backers will understand that the site is for supporting creativity, not for getting good deals.

Finally: put a ridiculously high donation level even if you think no one will ever give that much.  You might be pleasantly surprised all the way to the bank.

[amateurhour]

I'm new to the forums, but I've got some kickstarter knowledge.

First off, like it's been said, it's crowdsourcing, but you have to treat it as a pre-order kind of thing. If you don't have the money to make your game yourself, or at least half that money, don't use it.

Second, understand that there are taxes (in the US) and amazon takes a cut, so that final number isn't as nice as it looks. Those million dollar kickstarters only ended up with about 50-60% of what they raised after taxes, unless they had one hell of an accountant.

Third, if you're not sure you'll meet your goal, aim low. There's a lot of success with kickstarter at setting the minimum goal really low, and treating it like a pre order system, so the goal is met quickly and that way everyone that wants the product gets it. Obviously this is much harder if you're having to pay for the product and it isn't made yet, but it's an option.

Good luck!     

[deadsuperhero]

As someone that's involved with the Diaspora social networking project (Open Source Director), the project that I was involved with had a set reasonable limit of $10,000 dollars. Admittedly, that's a very easy goal to reach for basic funding. The original Kickstarter pitch for our project raised $200,000. The project got much more than expected, mainly because it was somewhat well-presented, and was shown at an opportune time when there was a lot of controversy regarding user privacy and Facebook.

If I have to give any advice for Kickstarter, it would be the following:

-Set a relatively low barrier for success. I would shoot for anywhere between 5k-10k
-Present everything about your project as well as possible.
-Make it fun! Be sure to include regular updates to demonstrate any progress you've made
-Offer some solid incentives for funding.

and finally, be sure to tell all of your friends. Word of mouth can go a really long way.

[Andail]

As someone that's involved with the Diaspora social networking project (Open Source Director), the project that I was involved with had a set reasonable limit of $10,000 dollars. Admittedly, that's a very easy goal to reach for basic funding. The original Kickstarter pitch for our project raised $200,000.

This is the thing that strikes me as... odd. You got $200,000, right down your pockets? You must be rich as trolls now? I mean, that was 190,000 more dollars than you asked for? Or am I misunderstanding something here...

[deadsuperhero]

This is the thing that strikes me as... odd. You got $200,000, right down your pockets? You must be rich as trolls now? I mean, that was 190,000 more dollars than you asked for? Or am I misunderstanding something here...

Not exactly. A portion of the funds went to paying for the prizes from the fundraising tiers, and another portion went to paying Kickstarter itself. While I can't give exact numbers, I can say that proportionally you do make less money than your initial fundraising offering. The amount we received was atypical, due to the fact that a lot of the people that donated were people concerned over some of Facebook's privacy issues (a huge issue at the time of the pitch), as well as our pitch's focus on decentralized social networking and data ownership, which you can read about here.

We've made that amount of money last about two years, with a small staff working full-time. Kickstarter is exactly what its name infers, it is a service for getting something off of the ground, rather than an inherent sustainable business model. (Granted a lot of indie games and smaller projects can get full funding from their efforts, but that's just one of a few different uses for crowdsourced funding.)